The Role of Religious Orientation in the Structure of Personal Identity

The present paper was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between religious orientation and personal identity and determining the role of this factor in predicting stable identity. The statistical sample includes 381 university students (133 male and 248 female) who were selected from state universities of Tehran using multi-stage random cluster sampling. The research findings indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between religious orientation and personal identity (p<0.0005). Based on religious orientation, %23.9 of personal identity can be justified in such a way that both subscales of ethic and beliefs-rites are regarded as significant predictors in determining personal identity. Furthermore, the results showed a significant difference between males and females in terms of religious orientation and personal identity. Females had higher scores than males in the scale of religious orientation and showed more constructed personal identity than males.